Encrypted (2 page)

“My eldest
?
My wives?” the Khan asked, but from his tone, it seemed
that
he already knew the answer.

“All.”

Before
Travanti
could respond, the Mongol
rose from
his throne
, pulling a gilded dagger from its sheath. The sharp blade found
Travanti’s
neck.

“Then
,
how is it
that
you
still
live
?” The Khan’s hot breath was upon
Travanti’s
face as the Mongol shoved the boy’s sleeve back to reveal the elaborately scarred pattern on his arm
.
“Is this what protects you
?
The words of your so-called angels?”

Before the Khan could
slit
his throat, a coughing fit took away the Mongol’s will to punish
.
Collapsing
onto
the cold metal of his
throne
, the heir to the Horde spit up a handful of blood
.
S
atisfied warmth spread through the boy
.
Dare to strike a child of God
,
and this was the ill
anyone
would suffer.

The Mongol called over an equally plague-stricken guard
.
“Prepare to retreat.”

It was only then that the hooded man stepped into the smoky light
.
“Is this how
the great-grandson of Genghis shows his mettle?”

The words stirred enough anger in the Mongol that
he rose to his feet, gilded dagger drawn
.
“
Enough
!
Or I will show you the steel of a Khan.”

“Brave words for a man who wishes to slink off in the night.”

The Khan stumbled back a step
.
The force bled from his voice
.
“What would you have me do?” He pointed to his blackened skin
,
punctuated by oozing pustules
.
“Or can you conjure a
salve
for this?”

“I doubt not that you are defeated, but seek you no vengeance?”

“With my last breath,” the Khan hissed.

For the first time
since his
second master had taken
him in,
T
r
avanti
saw
the hooded man smile
.
“The Heir to the Horde has spoken.”

* * *

The sentry
felt ill at ease
.
It was the damned silence
.
The Horde had fallen quiet
as more and more of their kind
burned
atop pyres
.
No more catapults
.
No more bone
-
rattling impacts
.
He should have been happy, jubilant
—
yet
,
he was not
.
Not until he and his countrymen were upon the high seas
,
s
ailing for Italia
.
Sailing for home.

“They cannot last another day,” another guard said, breaking the strange
,
new quiet.

The younger man seemed right
.
Activity buzzed
around the
Horde’s
camp
.
Hopefully
,
it signaled panic and disarray
.
A messy Mongolian retreat would make their escape by sea all the
easier
.
The sentry was so busy imagining sea breeze
s
in his hair that he nearly missed the incoming projectile.

“Down!”

He shoved the other soldier to the stone as the catapult’s load sailed overhead and landed with a sickening
thud
in the courtyard.

“Their last gasp,” the younger man said as he brushed off his tattered uniform.

Leave it to the Mongols to continue the fight up to their dying breath
s
.

“No!”
A
scream arose from the courtyard
.
“Run!”

The sentry head
ed
down the ladder as he remembered the early days of the siege
,
when the Horde had catapulted barrels of oil
followed by
few volleys of flaming arrows
.
The fortress
was
ablaze for days
.
Even though no more kindling
was left
, the sentry still feared what the Mongols might be capable of
.

Rumors of magic, sorcerers, and witches were rampant
.

Eve
r
prepared for
the
worst, the sentry nearly lost what little was in his stomach when he saw what the barbarians had flung over their wall
.

“No
!
” a woman screamed next to him.
“
I
t cannot be
!
”

The
body
’s
foul odor
bit his nose
.
Bloated and rotting, there was no doubt what had killed this Mongol
.
The plague.

“Quickly
!
” the sentry said to the nearest guard
.
“Throw it into the sea
!
”

“Beware!” a shout come from above, but the sentry was already
charging
the yard as the loud
thunk
s
of the catapults carried over the night air
.

“Flee!” a woman shouted from somewhere above.

But to where
?
They were penned in by four
stone
walls
.
They had
nowhere to go
.

He raced across the courtyard without concern, bowling over a mother with a babe in her arms
and
knocking a boy
on
his
arse
.
Nothing mattered
.
Nothing but informing the
c
aptain
.
He took the steps two at a time, bounding up to the war room.

The sentry shoved the door
open
, not
bothering to
stand on ceremony
.
“Sir, the Horde has
…”

W
as
he
,
too
,
out of breath, or could he
not
bring himself to say the w
ords that would doom the outpost?

“They fling bodies
?
Is it true?” the lieutenant asked, grabbing him by the collar.

“Aye, it is true.”

The lieutenant spun on his heel
toward
the
c
aptain
.
“We must flee by ship!”

“And spread this darkness to our home?” the older man asked.

“No one has fallen ill yet
.
We must make haste.”

A
s much as
t
he
sentry
loved his
c
aptain, the lieutenant’s words were music to
his
ears
.
Home
.
They could flee by sea
.
Home.

But the
c
aptain slammed
his
fist
onto
the table
.
“Nay
.
We will dispose of the bodies downstream
,
and quarantine all who
—
”

The
c
aptain’s words were cut off
.
At first
,
the sentry did not know the cause, but then blood trickled from the senior officer’s lapel
.
With a wet
thud
, the
c
aptain fell facedown onto the table, revealing a hooded man with a still
-
bloody knife in his hand.

The room filled with the sound of steel being unsheathed
.
Yet
,
all were stunned
.
No one moved forward
.
No one even breathed.

“Flee this city
,
or all your lives are forfeit
ed
,” the man said forcefully.

The sentry step
ped
forward
.
Church envoy or no, this man could not
butcher
their
c
aptain before his very eyes, but the lieutenant held him back as he re-sheathed his blade
.

“To the docks,” the lieutenant ordered.

It took not a single heartbeat before
everyone in
the room broke rank
.
Their
c
aptain wasn’t even cold
,
and his officers were scrambling
all
over themselves to disobey his orders
.
All
made
haste to the ships
—vessels
that could sail far, far from here.

The sentry stood
,
frozen.

His desire to flee was equal to the other
men
,
but he owed his life thrice over to the
c
aptain
.
How could he betray him so callously
?
So he stood as the others coursed around him
.
Except
for
one
.
One person
entered
the room
.
A boy
.
A young
,
blond boy
.
One
whom
the sentry had never
before
seen
.
After such a long siege, how could that be?

* * *

Travanti
didn’t even glance at the stunned soldier
.
Why should he
?
Within a single breath, his second master pulled the blade across the man’s throat and pushed his body on top of the
c
aptain’s
.
Such power in the thinnest of blades
.

“The Hidden Hand must know of our success here,” the hooded figure
said, indicating
for the boy
to
come
closer.

“Of course.”
Travanti
bowed his head
as he rolled up his sleeve.

“We must be certain
that
these ships reach Italy,
and
then north.” The hooded man’s dark brown eyes were alive with possibility
.
“All of Europe must fall.”

The boy bit his lip as the blade
sliced
into his skin
.
What was a little pain when so much more good
remained
to
be done
?

CHAPTER 1

Undisclosed
L
ocation

Present
D
ay

9
:00
p
.
m
.
,
MST

The archaic symbol
glowed red,
and
then flared gold across Ronnie’s ultra-high
-
resolution LCD screen.